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On Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat

An excerpt from Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat and a conversation with her translator, Michiel Heyns.

A farm in Vioolsdrift, Northern Cape, South Africa.

Photo by South African Tourism Flickr

From “Agaat”

By Marlene van Niekerk

The first time you slept with Jak was the day after he came to declare his intentions to your parents.

Translated from Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns

The Last Farm Novel?: An Interview with Michiel Heyns

“because Afrikaans literature is such a relatively small body of work that this will be a powerful addition to that body.”